"Mom—look!" Annika held the phone out, angle fighting the glare on the porch. Thin flakes hit the lawn and vanished. "Annika, don't you show off the way you eat snow," Laura's voice laughed through the screen. "Are you even wearing a jacket? You look like a sparrow." "I'm cold," Annika said, smiling. She pulled the robe tighter around her shoulders, fingers finding the small pill bottle inside and closing over it for a second. The bottle was warm from her palm. "Come home and get warm for good," Laura said. "You don't have to be alone in a place that makes you thin." The scold softened at the end like a thread. "I'll only be a week," Annika lied. Two words she had practiced three times on the drive from Quebec. She had left them at the edge of the bridge and they felt small now. "You're not staying a week," Laura said. "You know that. Your uncle's got rooms. Roberto keeps the kettle on." "Tell Roberto not to put salt on my eggs," Annika joked. "He thinks everything tastes better with it." "He's been putting salt in his own eggs for forty years, and he won't change now," Laura said, then quieter, "Bring your pills with you. Don't—" "I will," Annika said. She tucked the phone into the inside pocket of her robe and turned to the porch rail where a stack of calendars lay. She picked up